Lou Paduano | Urban Fantasy Novels | Sci-Fi Crime Series

Trustfall – Starting Points

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Welcome back to the author commentary on Pathways in the Dark. SPOILER WARNING ahead! I’m talking about Trustfall today…

Starting Points

Trustfall was the first tale in the collection I wrote. It was immediately after finishing The Medusa Coin. I was on a roll and wanted to keep the momentum of the series.

Why this one first?

The story about Ruiz and his daughter on a college campus was one of the initial thoughts I put down on paper when putting the collection together. If you know me, Ruiz is my favorite character in the series. I love writing him and really enjoy his interactions with other members of the cast.

At the end of The Medusa Coin, Ruiz realizes he can’t keep hiding from his wife. Not without losing her to the divide he’s built over the last two decades. So the question became what is the natural extension of that?

Enter: Zoe

If Ruiz is truly willing to start trusting in his family and opening up to his wife about what is happening in the city, how could I test that to the fullest?

That was my starting point. And my response was the introduction of Zoe, his eldest daughter.

For 18 years Ruiz has been able to keep his family safe in the northern coves. Away from downtown Portents. Away from the danger.

But now Zoe is going to college. One of the scariest things any parent has to endure.

How do you survive that in a city like Portents?

starting points

Building on that idea…

From there the pieces fell in line pretty quickly. Keeping Zoe and Ruiz, as well as his struggle to let her live her own life was central to making the story work.

But what could test that relationship? What could pull at them both?

That was where the challenge came from with this story and by pulling from the past I realized the story was there right from the start. I’ll be talking more about that next time.

The Opening Chapter

I’m a fan of the inciting incident. It’s the idea that a singular event occurs that drives the rest of the story. In Signs of Portents, it is the murder of Vlad. In The Medusa Coin, it is Henry Erikson summoning the Charon.

Typically it is an external force set on a collision course with the protagonist.

For Pathways in the Dark, I set out to mix things up with how the stories were paced.

Trustfall was one such experiment.

The scene at home with Ruiz doing the dishes was one I went back and forth on. For a couple reasons:

  1. I was concerned it didn’t draw the reader in enough. It’s a lengthy scene without overt conflict. There was the fear of driving readers away rather than pushing them to the next chapter where we start to see what’s happening on the campus.
  2. It was a LONG scene. I try to keep chapters short. Jump in and jump right out at the first opportunity. For this story I stayed in that kitchen for a long time, weaving in the conflict in the background through their discussion. I have my reasons. First and foremost was the change in Ruiz from The Medusa Coin. A happy and relaxed family man versus the stressed and overworked police captain previously seen. The second, and equally important, reason was to show a different dynamic than the audience was used to when reading Greystone. Ruiz is the only family man in the cast and I wanted to play up that angle.

I think the scene works. It sets things up on a relationship level and layers in the conflict to come. Starting internal and then expanding in the following moments keeps the central conflict on Ruiz. Always a plus in my eyes.

Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe it was self-indulgent having this winding conversation instead of jumping into things.

What do you think? Shoot me an email at lou@loupaduano.com

Collateral Commentary – Using the Greystone

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The Collateral commentary concludes here so SPOILER WARNING is in effect!

A reason for everything…

I go out of my way to make this the one truth behind anything I write. There has to be a reason for everything. It has to make sense, both from a character perspective and a plot perspective.

From clothing to speech pattern it all comes from these two factors.

For example: In one of the early novels, Soriya made a reference to Scooby Doo. I want to say it was The Consultant or possibly another story from Tales from Portents, but it was in there through much of the editing process.

It was funny and matched the scene perfectly.

It was also completely out of character. Does Soriya own a television? Negative. Does she ever make a pop culture reference unless it is to question something Loren says? Nope.

Should she know what the hell Scooby Doo is? Of course. Everyone should know what Scooby Doo is and how eternal those old cartoons are. Would she know about it? No way. No how.

It had to go.

See? Reasons for everything.

Including the Greystone

I expected more crap for this. Every instance of a rune showing up I waited for someone to shoot me an email to lay into me for my lack of imagination. Does Soriya depend on the same four or five runes to defend herself from the menaces she faces?

Yes, she does. Collateral, especially, when Soriya confronts the Phoenix in the alley, she blasts her with the same two runes rather than come up with a new game plan.

Is it just my lack of imagination or inability to research some new tactic? No. Not this time anyway…

The truth behind her lack of diversity, and my reasoning behind it when I put together a scene, is that when it comes to assaults using the Greystone it is always based on her knowledge. It comes from her training with Mentor. He knew a specific way of doing things and that was what he taught her.

She continues to utilize that knowledge to the best of her ability.

Why is this important? Why mention this at all?

Ah, dear reader, you know me too well. There is a reason for everything including this blog. See, Soriya is about to learn more about the Greystone than she ever thought possible in A Circle of Shadows.

You will see more runes, more languages, more signs, and more danger because of them than every before.

The first reason for Soriya’s continued use of the same limited number of runes came from character.

The plot reason comes to play in September’s release of A Circle of Shadows.

A monumental shift is coming this fall to Greystone. Get ready.

So no hate mail about the runes, okay?

Thanks for reading.

Collateral Commentary – The Phoenix

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Your friendly neighborhood SPOILER WARNING here! I will be discussing the plot of Collateral in detail including the threat behind the story so you have been sufficiently WARNED…

Finding the threat

I stumbled out of the gate on this one. Usually I’m quick to know the threat of a story. I like to have it worked out before I start putting plot to paper.

To start, I focused on what I knew.

This was Loren and Soriya’s show. Their dynamic, more than anything else in the series, has been the driving force of each and every book. So I needed their case, their shared menace, to be solely about where they were at this moment in time.

Loren was reeling from the gut punch of learning Soriya was present the day his wife died. Another secret, one too many kept from him.

Soriya, during The Medusa Coin, learned that trust is necessary to make their relationship work. Oops…

I wanted to play with those crossed wires and really charge each scene with Loren’s anger and Soriya’s constant joy at just being near him again after his close call with the Charon.

The second piece I had was the background of the threat’s arrival. Henry Erikson. His actions in The Medusa Coin set off this tale. His research into saving his own skin brought something to Portents that should never have been there.

Thus my search began. What was it? What could it mean for this specific story? For these two particular characters?

Finding the Phoenix

Yes, I am a fan of the X-Men. No, this had nothing to do with that.

In my search through a database of mythical creatures I tried to dissuade myself from using a phoenix. Because of the X-Men, because of its constant use through media.

Yet, it was because of this use that the phoenix ended up working perfectly.

The Phoenix as this life-giving force, this creature of light, twisted by her arrival into Portents was meant to prove counter to Soriya’s journey. Throughout The Medusa Coin and even before that, Soriya viewed herself as a force of destruction; offering little more than death.

Here, she tried to save the day, tried to save the city and this creature who was meant to do the same stood in her way. Soriya is forced to play her dark role for the betterment of Portents.

At a cost.

The innocence of the Phoenix, her reasoning behind her actions really drove it home. She is trying to help people live to their fullest in spite of causing their deaths. The fact that she can’t understand the pain being caused by her actions and that Soriya has to intervene in the harshest way possible made it that much brutal.

Maybe there is no real light, no real victory to be had in this fight.

The toughest one to pull off…

I struggled with this tale. More than any other in the collection. For me, the joy of writing the series is the interplay with the characters. To see Soriya and Loren at odds, to feel the tension in the background the entire time, was difficult to manage and more difficult to conceive.

I think it worked though. And I definitely think it was necessary to push these two further apart, which is where they are when A Circle of Shadows opens.

What are your thoughts? Shoot me an email at lou@loupaduano.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Collateral Commentary – Starting Points

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Let the commentary BEGIN! As a warning, there will be SPOILERS and in this case they also relate not only to the opening story in Pathways in the Dark but also to The Medusa Coin. BEWARE… BEWARE… (Sorry, my 3 year old says that to me all the time.)

Starting Points for Collateral…

Even though it has the prominence of the first story in the collection, the truth of the matter is I wrote this one dead last.

There were two reasons.

  1. I knew it was a longer story to tell and I had four shorter tales in the works that demanded less commitment to put together.
  2. I only knew 2 out of the 3 critical elements for this story and couldn’t make it work without the third piece to the puzzle.

Setting Up Those Critical Elements

Coming from The Medusa Coin, I had two things going for me. I had a tension building photo that was causing a rift between Loren and Soriya. It gave me a lot of play on how these two would interact, one aware of this secret and the other completely oblivious.

So, Collateral for me was my chance to delve into a new wrinkle in the Soriya/Loren dynamic. In order to see how Loren would handle it as well as see where Soriya was having made many incorrect choices of late.

I knew where I wanted this story to end and how it would be the only one in the collection to showcase the old team. This was another reason why Collateral HAD to be first in Pathways. To not bring Soriya and Loren right to the forefront of the collection would have been a huge blow to the reader, in my opinion, so I’m glad the timeline and the subject matter worked out in order to keep them front and center for everyone.

The second critical piece for this story centered around Henry Erikson. In The Medusa Coin it is stated he looked into a cure for his illness for 3 years without success. But just because he hadn’t been cured didn’t mean he hadn’t stumbled upon something worthwhile during his search.

That was what clicked for me. This idea that this one man’s actions could have ramifications for so many others. That because of his desperation he unleashed not only the Charon during The Medusa Coin, but something else we had no clue about until now.

But what was the threat?

That’s where I was stuck. Without that critical element I wasn’t ready to put the story together. I’ll tell you all about it next time.

Talk to you then!

Pathways in the Dark Author Commentary Introduction

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This is absolutely my favorite time of the year. If you’re anything like me, you love to listen or read the author commentary on a book, film, DVD collection… anything that brings insight into something you loved. To me, the process behind putting a final product together adds to the enjoyment of the product itself.

Pathways in the Dark Author Commentary Begins!

If you’ve enjoyed the book already feel free to dive in right from the start. If you haven’t, be aware that I will be going in-depth into each and every short story contained within. I won’t deliberately go out of my way to ruin a plot point, especially if it doesn’t pertain to what I am talking about during the blog.

Remember, if there is something you desperately have to know about the making of Pathways in the Dark, be sure to email me at lou@loupaduano.com. I have my general list of items I want to hit for the next few months (yeah, it’s a little long…) so be sure if there is something you really found interesting in the book and want to know how it ended up in the draft LET ME KNOW!! Can’t wait to hear from you.

Why this project?

This is a question I will answer for each and every short story in the collection. However, looking at the book as a whole I think this is important as well. I’m not a fan of short stories. I don’t typically read them, anthologies, or the like. I’ve never felt they carried the same weight or meant as much to a series as a full-length installment.

I was wrong.

Or, at least, I set out to prove that conceit was incorrect.

Pathways in the Dark, like Tales from Portents before it, is vital to the Greystone series and deliberately so. There are so many little tidbits layered into the collection. Pieces of a puzzle yet to even be formed in some cases, that I can’t see the series without this book. The overall narrative fails without the arcs contained in Pathways.

Ruiz’s lesson in Trustfall. Soriya’s new apartment. The backstory of Samantha Myers. Each one was designed to showcase a character and propel them forward, to push them toward A Circle of Shadows while also putting them to the test to explain why they are important to the story, to understand who they are and where they’ve been when the next novel opens.

It is a much different collection than Tales from Portents. One that owes much to that first collection, but one that when all is said and done very much stands on its own as a moment in time for these characters and the choices they have made. The impact of those choices and how they came about.

The price they’ve paid or will pay because of them.

Collateral starts next time!

Feel free to drop me a line and let me know your thoughts and if you would like to hear more about a part of the book or the series at lou@loupaduano.com.

Always happy to hear from you.

Thanks for reading.

Pathways in the Dark Launch Offer Ends This Week

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This last week has been a whirlwind. Launching a book always feels that way, trying to get as many eyeballs on the series as possible in a short burst that hopefully attracts even more people down the line. I couldn’t do it alone. Thank you to everyone helping me out during this launch. Spreading the word is one of the toughest parts of this gig and the newsletter swaps from other authors, the online promo sites, the friends and family involved in making this a success is truly incredible.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Launch offer ends this week!

Pathways in the Dark is still only $0.99 but that ends this weekend! Be sure to grab your copy before it jumps to full price!

            

Already read the book?

Have you already enjoyed the hell out of the latest installment in the Greystone series? Be sure to leave a review! Reviews can be as simple as a “Great book” or as complex as a rundown of the contents story by story. It is completely up to you but each one helps provide social proof to potential readers that the series is one worth checking out!

Each review is greatly appreciated!

            

Let me know what you think!

Feel free to drop me a line at lou@loupaduano.com and let me know how I’m doing! I’d love to hear from you!

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